Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Willie Soon – What do climate activists do if they can’t convince adults to support their hardline green policies?
Children’s books can do more to inspire the new generation of Earth warriors
June 4, 2018 9.59pm AEST
Gary Haq
SEI Associate, Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York
A changing climate means the frequency of extreme weather events such as heat waves, flooding, hurricanes and wildfires has become a common occurrence. Temperatures are increasing on the land and in the ocean, the sea level is rising and amounts of snow and ice are diminishing, as greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations have increased. Unfortunately, children and young people are taking the brunt of climate changeand this will continue into the future.
Doctors are seeing the serious effects of global warming on children’s health and are concerned that it could reverse the progress made over the past 25 years in reducing global child deaths. Not only that, children are at risk of mental health issues such as depression and anxiety due to natural disasters caused by climate change.
…
Given the enormity of the climate challenge, it is surprising how limited coverage of our changing climate receives in current children’s fiction. The children’s publishing sector is booming. UK sales of children’s books rose by 16% in 2016 with sales totalling £365m. Globally, children’s book sales have risen steadily across all age categories.
Some picture books do explain climate change (such as The Magic School Bus and Climate Change by Joanne Cole and Bruce Degen). And there are plenty of young adult novels that feature dystopian climate futures (such as Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd). But few fiction books for eight to 11-year-olds discuss the issue.
…
We need children to care about the planet if they are to the tackle climate challenge that lies ahead. Storytelling can play a part in raising awareness and inspiring children and young adults to take action and become the next generation of Earth warriors.
Michael Mann endorses the child “Earth Warrior” initiative.
"Children’s books can do more to inspire the new generation of Earth warriors" by @DrGaryHaq of The @ConversationUK: https://t.co/Iaw2U2m9CK#TantrumAction @TantrumBook
— Dr. Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) June 4, 2018
As a father I’m rather glad about the shortage of “dystopian” children’s stories. Young children experience enough nightmares without deliberately force feeding them nasty apocalyptic visions of how painful, empty and pointless their future will be.
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There will be a backlash when the children realise they have been lied to.
Coming to a University near you willie soon.
Couldn’t resist it!……..Sorry. 🙂
You’re fast off the mark, HotScot! And, yes, one day these kids will realise that it was just a crock!
They will. Do the perpetrators know that they could become the Harvey Weinsteins in 10 years? It’s not just lies and propaganda tactics, this is in the realm of permanent brain damage IMO, and with the internet “stalking” technology being the way it is now (and in the future), there’ll be nowhere to hide you Stokes and Moshers, Manns and Cooks. Trenberth will be let off for being the biggest dufus in the class. Jones, not sure. Hansen …. will be cold already.
Right now we have the opposite case. The skeptics are being treated like Weinsteins.
There’s an election going on in Ontario (Canada). One of the Conservative candidates is a skeptic. The other parties are trumpeting that fact in a manner that you would think the Conservative party must be full of child abusers and other perverts.
This is not surprising. Canadians still form their opinions from what they are told by their MSM, especially the dominant news source the CBC tv and radio. The CBC still talks about climate change every day, and Canadians listen and follow it faithfully. The CBC even has a Saturday science show which regularly talks about anthropogenic climate change like it is unquestionable truth.
As a result most Canadians are stuck in 2009.
Canadas CBC and Aus ABC run hand in glove
same dross on our science shows day in day out and every chance to mention agw even on the religious shows, but then it IS a Belief system isnt it?
The US PBS is similarly hard green.
And the US NPR (National Public Radio) also.
That’s why the Broadcasting Board of Governors needs to be de-funded and shut down.
I notice a commenter referring to Harvey Weinstein. It should be Jeffery Epstein.
I recall a prominent environmental activist (woman) who openly promoted incest. These are sick people who prey on children and need to be stopped.
Kids have enough on their plate without this.
I penned an article a few years ago and as a grandfather, I have been successful at explaining to the grandkids the truth of the matter politely and reasonably to counter propaganda they learn about this in school (and what the other propagandized grandfather espouses on the subject) without denigrating anyone and non confrontational.
It’s a tough job but worth it. Winning!
http://dailybail.com/home/kids-climate-crusade-keeps-rolllin-through-the-courts.html
Greens and other left wing progressives have a history of promoting pedophile concerns, especially in the 60’s and 70’s.
John,
Sharpen the old pen up and get to it as a Grandpa I can not think of anything better to do & to pass on, it must be easy to do even politicians and actors have tried it!!
Most Canadians are not what the media portrays. We just happen to have a few governments that see some advantage in the climate scare theology.
Then there is Mr. Dressup Trudeau and Climate Barbie helping to make us look really stupid.
Phil,
I was as surprised to have posted first as you are.
Which made me think. The editing facility on the new format could incite some users to simply post a single word to establish their place on the blog comments, then edit it out to a whole comment.
Or is that just the cynic in me showing?
🙂
Child abuse, no other term for it.
Gerard, I agree. Filling children’s heads with lurid end-of-the-world tales is nothing short of pornographic.
They could stitch it to the Victorian “Safe Schools” program,that really was A grade child abuse!
It will be a generational experience in 2040 to talk about the various horror stories that textbooks and teachers spread today. Peak climate change scare is here.
I hope this is peak scare— but they seem to keep upping the ante.
I think Linnea’s concerns are valid Hugs. A recent WUWT referenced a quote by Max Planck “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” The same can be said for lies. Especially well financed lies backed by the Pro CAGW Government with control over Public School education. The government funded alarmists see education as a weapon they control and this is all a matter of keeping the message (read propaganda) alive until the Baby Boomers are nothing more than an exercise in Carbon Dating.
If the world doesn’t end soon, I’m leaving!
Stockholm Environmental Institute is the leading pseudoscience alarmist in Sweden…
Would they be creating Stockholm Syndrome?
Maybe that all the current Plinian explosive eruption in reporting the earth’s volcanic activity will stop the CAGW in its tracks and save the humanity from a looming and inevitable disaster/sarc
As we know the solar activity is heading for the SC24 minimum and possibly low SC25.
Occasionally it is said by one or two contributors that during prolong lower solar cycles there is a notable increase in the volcanic activity.
Now Telegraph in its extensive free access article is asking:
Is volcanic activity on the rise – and if so, where’s next?
link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/volcano-next-to-erupt-more-activity/
I did try to attach link to the article but doesn’t appear to be there.
The link is present, but visited links appear in white, which makes them almost invisible on the light grey background. I haven’t visited your link, so I see it in blue.
addendum: only people who have already visited your link can’t see it – so it’s not really worth complaining!
Of course it is worth complaining. What can it cost to get the FG color right?
Clearing browsing data link becomes visible (in blue colour).
Codswallop!
Michael Mann just wants his hockey stick beaten into the heads of innocent children.
It is happening now in my experience when talking to my grandchildren.
I was chatting to our niece’s daughter, here in the UK.
She proudly showed me her book: The Horrible History of the World, by a BBC scumbag, Terry Deary.
Every achievement of human civilisation is denigrated: the laws, cities, etc, etc. ALL human progress is denigrated.
There is praise only for Totalitarian China.
It is the most insidious mind control. It is child abuse.
I take them off the childrens’ shelves of local libraries, book them out & don’t return them. They do not pursue me.
The BBC children’s “comedy” series Horrible Histories backs up this attempt to prepare our kids’ minds for the Hunger Games World the Bankster 1%s & their compliant cohorts have in mind.
John Doran.
“Storytelling can play a part in raising awareness ” …..
…. and there you have it. The entire history of “climate change” summed up in eight words.
When I was younger, it was enough to be a Friend of the Earth. Now we must be warriors. Desperate times, indeed. Why the militaristic call to duty when our air and water are so much cleaner now? It’s the desperation of power-hungry politicians losing their grip on reality.
Correct me if i’m wrong but doesn’t friendship work both ways? Does the Earth even want our friendship? Or even care? Is it capable of understanding what “friendship” even is? Maybe i’m going to be a friend of my chair, or that nice girl who doesn’t even know about me.
This reminds me of religious warriors of many different religions. Because they believe that God or Gods told them that they should fight for him/them. Even though nobody actually showed concrete proof that God ordered them to kill others in his name. And everyone else either blindly believed that, or just took advantage of it. Modern enviromentalism is so similar to a religion and people don’t even realise it. I guess it’s in our nature to worship things.
That’s what the whole thing is about isn’t it? LOL
Training children, of course, works. It is called brainwashing, and has always gone on for one reason or another. Politics and religion are two examples.
A quote from an unknown goes:
“Be careful what you put in your brain, for you will never, ever get it out again.”
And:
“Scientists don’t change their minds – they grow old and die, and scientists with different ideas take their place.”
And my own quote:
“Children believe what they are taught, even when you believe you are not teaching them.”
The literal fact is, ……….
“You are what your environment nurtured you to be”.
Lest we forget
Hitler youth
Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the efficient brainwashing works extremely well on such as these.
We had a similar problem in 1910 when we were told were were all going to die because of deadly carbon compound in the atmosphere: cyanogen. We were sold “comet pills” to protect us. Nobody died, but the comet-pill hawkers did well out of it. “Shows the pills worked, don’t it?” Replace nitrogen with carbon, and pills with carbon credits, and it turns out to be the same scam, with zeroes and politicians added.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1910/02/08/104920328.pdf
The Impact of Science on Society, by Lord Bertrand Russell is key to noticing Mann is simply following it rote, robot like. Russell advises :
“The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at.”
“First, that the influence of home is obstructive.
Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten.
Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective.
Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity.
But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray.”
A Russell wannabee? No? Then quote mephistopheles Russell early and often, warn the kids hapless parents.
It seems to me that “factualist” and “factualism” are ‘ better fit’ words than are “skeptic” and “skepticism.”
From the EASAC Extreme weather and trends in Europe report:
“Human influence on climate has increased the
probability that persistent anticyclones may cause
heat waves in Europe such as in 2003 by around
a factor of four compared with the scenario
without recent climate warming”
In fact summer 1976 was hotter in England, even during a cold AMO phase, as solar wind conditions were stronger. All because Saturn was in a tighter quadrature with Jupiter and Uranus than in 2003. The same type of configuration also drove the heatwaves of 1948-49, and 1934, and the warm year of 1686 in the middle of the Maunder Minimum. Such heatwaves are drivers of climate change, not the result of climate change.
2003:
1976:
EASAC:
“The high-temperature summer extremes have been
contrasted with extreme cold winters in some years
in parts of Europe. However, such cold spells are
often associated with the same type of long-lasting
high-pressure systems as summer heat waves.”
That’s effectively saying that negative North Atlantic/Arctic Oscillation (NAO/AO) is the same as positive NAO/AO. Such cold spells are associated with solar minima and weak solar wind conditions producing deep negative NAO/AO states, which is why it hasn’t been that cold (Dec 2010) since the last solar minimum, despite the globe warming since then.
All factors effected by the AMO shifting to its warm phase, including regional precipitation, drought, and storm tracks, are of the wrong sign to associate with an anthropogenic signal, as the warm AMO is negative NAO driven, while rising CO2 forcing is expected to increase positive NAO. Moreover, a warm AMO is normal during a solar minimum.
The daughter of an old high school friend recently published a children’s book, Solar, the Polar Bear… I have managed to not ridicule it on Facebook… only because the friend’s late father was a geologist with Newmont Mining, and somewhat of a mentor to me way back in the Pleistocene.
well as hes the “late” and would probably also be pretty unimpressed id guess..you owe it to him to ridicule away..
constructive criticism and all that;-)
What happens when AI directed personal avatars are the primary means of educating children? Will AI spoon feed children the bogus science the alarmists are proclaiming? The kind of leaps in knowledge already being made by using integrated data from diverse sources would seem to preclude ignoring things like the urban heat island effect, and the large swaths of interpolated temperatures. A self directed AI educational or tutoring program may refuse to serve up RCP8.5 projections of future climate impacts unless the is strong evidence that human intelligence w’s been lowered an effective 20 points on he IQ scale.
What are the innovations and the advances in civilized society that can be expected to result from the teaching of bogus science to our children?
There is a reality and there is just one version of reality. Reality is what it is. Each truth is what it is. Each truth is a part of the whole truth. The sum of all truths equals the one reality……..And it just doesn’t freaking matter whether you believe it or not.
WSJ article
https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-has-run-its-course-1528152876
I input a link to the WSJ article and it didn’t post
?????????????????
Ah, if I hover my cursor in the area where I input the link, the cursor changes from an arrow to a hand.
Thanks to Khwarizmi comment 1 hour ago.
Hey, we should have time stamps on each comment.
Right now, I would carefully monitor what kids read and try to steer them toward old-style sci-fi or fantasy fiction. Heinlein’s books like ‘Have Spacesuit-Will Travel’ and ‘Red Planet’ end on positive notes, with the “kids” solving the problems and in the case of Kip and Peewee, saving the planet with Mother Thing as a backup.
Fantasy fiction like The Hobbit is better than the dysfunctional stories that are written to intimidate readers and deny them a solution to a problem. And there is plenty of kids’ lit available that does not aim at dystopic, dysfunctional societies that are headed toward Doomsday.
Movies like “Goonies” are better than the majority of the twaddle that passes for entertainment. And frankly, Walt Disney’s family-oriented movies like ‘Pollyanna’ and old TV shows like ‘My Friend Flicka’ and ‘Fury’ would be better for them to watch. If you are really concerned about what your kids are getting “fed” at school in the way of information, look up the “old stuff’ from the 1950s and 1960s, before it became OK to be ill=mannered, sloppy buffoons.
There is a lot of turmoil going on in Western civilization that was not necessary. It should never have happened, but without the threat that it represents, we might take for granted what we rely on. It is easy to see how quickly it can be threatened and then demolished by carelessness on our part. That includes everything from having electricity for light and gas for heating and cooking at the flip of a switch, to moving about freely in your car and having good, fresh food readily available .
It’s too easy to let authority figures like teachers with a hidden agenda destroy from within. But you can counter that by building your kids’ defenses from within It’s quite all right to teach them to be skeptics, and find things out for themselves. And it may be the only way to keep them from becoming Robots of Doom.
Only if the solution is REALISTIC. I am tired of feel good crap from the skeptic side too. You can’t magically get rid of wind energy, you can’t scare the wind people, you can’t change the greed and lies of politicians yet there are books that imply that. DO NOT LIE even when using science fiction.
PS—I can’t stand the Hobbit.
You don’t like The Hobbit? Oh! But it was such a great adventure!!! And that was my point. Children’s stories used to be adventures, not nightmares.
There are enough nightmares in the real world that we all have to face. Kids don’t need them embedded in what is supposed to be fun stuff. That was my point.
Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten. 🙂
did you read the book first?
I found ‘The Hobbit’ and the other books at the book store after I got through high school I thought they were great stuff, and The Hobbit was a hoot.
You’re supposed to have adventures when you’re a kid. OK, so I wasn’t a “kid” when I read LOTR and The Hobbit, but I still wanted that sense of adventure.
Sara a problem I faced in battling what was and was not being taught in my child’s schools were other parents. It was not necessarily that the other parents agreed or disagreed with what was being taught, they didn’t care, it was they didn’t want to be involved since it required them to do more work. As a group of parents told me very clearly at one gifted parents meeting, they had not intention of getting farther involved in educating their children that was what they were paying the teachers to do.
I think what you’re talking about is the reason that a lot of parents are doing home schooling.
“Heinlein’s books like ‘Have Spacesuit-Will Travel”
One of the first science fiction books I read as a child. Loved it.
Ditto. I bought a slide rule when I was 11 because I wanted to know what Peewee was talking about. It’s buried somewhere in my boxes of junk.
How long does the effect last? Like many techniques used by the climate warriors this may be short-lived. Many children grow out of the fantasy book world and find out about real life—especially if it means losing that iPhone. I rarely see studies on how long the ideas stay with the child. (I know I outgrew fairy tales very early on. I may be the exception, but I don’t find a lot of adults out there who believe Nemo was real.)
I’d love to read studies on how long these things marketing techniques last.
Also, aren’t there any skeptic books for kids? Realistic ones, I mean.
We all still believe in fairy tales.
You are deluding yourself if you think you are not.
They are just more sophisticated fairy tales, that’s all.
Judging from the number of adult Harry Potter, Marvel/DC, and Star Wars fans out there. There are a lot of people who are heavily invested in a variety of fantasy worlds. Some to the point where the line between reality and fantasy worlds gets a bit blurry.
I grew up on Star Wars. I loved every part of it. Yet even as a child, I understood that ‘The Force’ was imaginary.
Religions are probably the best example of indoctrination, yet there are no religions that have never lost followers. Belief can only sustain you so long against reality.
One of the best examples of indoctrination was the old Soviet Union. Most of its people honestly believed what the where told to believe. And when reality showed that the Capitalist West was doing better, they simply block that information from being spread.
But eventually reality won. Because it’s hard to believe that your nation is the most successful when you’re standing in a bread line.
~¿~
I’d agree with your take on this, Sheri, except for one thing: I absolutely groove on fantasy fiction and good sci-fi. I have the entire Deverry saga by Kathryn Kerr, which grew out of a role-playing game. And I love getting into a herbalist’s clothing and going to the Renaissance Faire. It’s all harmless and it’s enormous fun.
I also have a love of Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances.
Most people view that as simple escapism, with a return to the Real World of jobs and paychecks. If that weren’t so, then the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies might not have had quite such a large audience.
The effect will last the rest of their lives. BECAUSE the books are not reality, and they know it, they learn to think and reason. It helps them explore actual reality vs. fantasy. I would argue it would make them see the fantasy of AGW for what it is.
To semi-quote Bette Davis: Fasten your seat belts, boys. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
Time to charge these scumbags with child endangerment and mental abuse of minors.
I am rather sad weary and cynical.
The problem resolves as I see it to a simple question of the world being too complicated for anyone to understand, and therefore such understanding as we do have, adults somewhat more than children, is in terms of simplified fairy stories, and science is one such, and e.g. socialism is another, and religion yet another.
All of these stories have merit, but none represent the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and the problem is their adherents think that they do. Because they are not taught as stories, but as literal truth.
Therefore children will always be naive, ignorant, believing in a simple set of stories they have been told, and therefore liable to error. It resolves into an issue of which lies to tell them 😉
The only antidote is to teach a core philosophy about the nature of truth itself.
But even here few would support this.
In a rational and objective world they would just tell the kids both sides of the story and let them decide for themselves. Or let them be kids and tell them when they are older. But that wouldn’t serve these people’s agenda…
reading crud like this makes me soooo angry
no wonder we have kids on SSRI meds at 4yrs old
these mongrels have no shame pushing their lies and fearmongering into kids lives
any parent buying this for their kids should be slapped hard, as a wake up
wouldnt do any good i know, theyre already mindwiped to the max.
Have we already forgotten the cartoon, Captain Planet?
First thing that came to my mind, before I got three words into this article! What an excreble pile of horsefeathers that cartoon was. My son was pre-school age when it was on so I confess to seeing it a few times. Fortunately he didn’t pay much attention to it.
The intro was a hoot, when the female character from Russia was asked “Are you Russian??” by the stereotypical thick-skulled male from America she replied “NYET!!! I am SOVIET!!!”
Just a few years later, we could ask “What’s a Soviet?”
I was glad when the show disappeared, but it seems a goodly number of our Millenials have absorbed it’s flawed thesis.
“… the frequency… has become a common occurrence.”
Oh my. Stupid ray on stun.